This morning, I pulled a card for us: The High Priestess.
She is the keeper of intuition, the one who lives between what is spoken and what is unspoken. She doesn’t rush to reveal everything—but she does remind us that silence has weight, and sometimes it poisons what it tries to protect.
I’ve come to see how secrecy was the way of past generations in my family. They were fearful of certain truths, especially the darker ones that ran rampant behind closed doors. So they swept them under the carpet, polished the surface, and carried on.
“What is buried never dies; it only waits for a voice to call it back into the air.” — Clarissa Pinkola Estés
I didn’t fully understand that pattern until recently, when one of my children challenged me about a truth in my history. I realized I had repeated the pattern without meaning to. I had alluded to a shadowy story involving someone no longer with us and thought maybe the story had died with him. But the thing about what’s buried? It’s only six feet under.
And when a secret is rooted beneath you, you want to roll like a tumbleweed—hush it, quiet it, leave it there. But then someone looks you in the eyes and asks directly. In that moment, the truth becomes the only possible answer.
Truth has its own demons. Its own knots that unravel when pulled. But in that unraveling, there’s space—for growth, for transformation.
At first, naming the truth felt unbearable. But over time, it became a blessing. This week’s theme, in my life and apparently for many others, has been generational healing. Yesterday, so many women wrote to me saying they keened, they wailed, they cried. They let out grief that had been silenced for years. And I know that when one voice speaks, other voices in other families find permission to unweave too.
“When we speak, we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.” — Audre Lorde
For years, the unspoken shaped me. I ricocheted between being too blunt, too in-your-face, or silencing myself entirely. I now see how easy it is to excuse that imbalance with: “I’m just blunt, that’s who I am.” But really, it’s a way of saying we don’t care about the person on the other side of our words. Know this; growth is possible. Change is possible. It’s never too late to soften without silencing, to express without shattering.
I remember when my daughter once asked me, “But what do you want, mom?”
I couldn’t even process the question. Rage rose up—not at her, but at the concept itself. “What do you mean, what do I want? I’m a mother. I don’t get to want.” That was the silence of sacrifice speaking through me. That was betrayal of self, passed down through generations of women who gave up everything until there was nothing left of them but servitude.
“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” — Alice Walker
But things are shifting now. Securing this California land, building a tiny cabin, going through ceremony, beginning to step back into coaching—it’s all anchoring me differently. My young adult kids now have a base they can return to. They know they can heal here, rest here, breathe here. And even more beautiful—they know they can actually build homes for themselves and potentially others. With their own hands! Shelter, freedom, power. How incredible is that!?!
Just a few days before we closed on the land, I went through a profound unearthing. A secret that had been buried deep surfaced. And on the land itself, I took part in a Bufo, Kambo, and Hapé ceremony. It cracked me open. Hidden truths became real, acknowledged, spoken. The silence ended.
And that is the teaching of The High Priestess: your intuition already knows. The truth has always been there, waiting. We just have to stop running like tumbleweeds, stop pretending what’s buried is gone, and trust ourselves enough to unearth it.
“The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.” — Gloria Steinem
And sometimes, trusting intuition is less about revealing a secret and more about knowing when to walk away.
Just last night, I had an appointment to change my little tree tattoo in honor of my aunt’s life. My daughter Ary sat beside me. The shop was full of Grateful Dead imagery—dancing bears, skulls and roses—which my jam fam friends would have loved, but it wasn’t my style. Still, I was pushing myself forward because I had made the appointment.
As I walked toward the tattoo chair, gangster rap blasted through the speakers: “Bitch, get out the way. Get out the way, bitch, get out the way.” (Yes, really, lol) The tattooist’s name was Michael—my birth father’s name, also once my middle name. At first it felt like a sign. But in that moment, with the music pounding, I realized: this isn’t for me.
I heard my friend Katie’s voice in my head, reminding me we had talked about getting tattoos together. And so I took a breath, turned to Michael, and said: “I deeply appreciate your time, but I think this would be more meaningful if my daughter—who is a tattooist—did this tattoo for me.” I offered to Venmo him for his time, thanked him, and walked out.
Ary was outside laughing, telling her sister Eden about it. Both of them were relieved I hadn’t gone through with it. And instead of leaving in disappointment, Ary and I had shared a full day together. She brought me coffee in the morning, helped me edit my blog, sat with me through the tattoo-that-didn’t-happen. Later, I got myself a hotel room, went dancing, and shook my grief out on the dance floor.
I danced away sadness and keening. I danced like everyone was watching—and I didn’t give a fuck. I came back to my breath, to life, to beauty. And then I showered, curled into a cool bed with air conditioning, and remembered: self-care is sacred too.
“The body says what words cannot.” — Martha Graham
I managed to sleep in this morning and I feel so deeply refreshed. Numerous people yesterday (including my mother) thanked me for choosing to stay. On that note, here is today’s reflection, for all the women learning to trust themselves again:
What truths have you been rolling away from like a tumbleweed?
What secrets are still six feet under in your family line?
What practices help you move grief and trauma through your body? Dance, tears, ceremony, journaling, walking barefoot—what’s yours?
And what would shift if you trusted your intuition enough to act on it, even when it means walking away from a choice you thought you’d already chosen?
Because yes—the truth may come undone. But in its wake, a new weave begins. And what it leaves behind is not just freedom, but fertile ground where strength, peace, happiness, and beauty can grow.
May your day be filled with moments of unadulterated bliss. From my heart to yours, Joy
Unscripted Joy 